Tuesday, May 08, 2012
Something familiar, something peculiar, something for everyone
By Edward Copeland
If I'd located one, a photo of the number "Everybody Ought to Have a Maid" from the first Broadway revival of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum in 1972 that starred Phil Silvers as Pseudolus would be resting between the still from the original 1962 production starring (from left to right) John Carradine as Marcus Lycus, Jack Gilford as Hysterium, David Burns as Senex and the magnificent Zero Mostel as Pseudolus, which opened 50 years ago tonight, and the photo below it showing the cast of the second Broadway revival in 1996 that starred (from left to right) Nathan Lane as Pseudolus, Mark Linn-Baker as Hysterium, Ernie Sabella as Marcus Lycus and Lewis J. Stadlen as Senex. (Sadly, not only could I only find two black-and-white photos from the 1972 revival, they
never made a cast recording either, so we can't hear what Silvers sounded like singing the part. The song link takes you to the 1962 original Broadway cast recording) This musical comedy registers as a theatrical landmark on many levels, the most significant being that it marked the first time Stephen Sondheim wrote both the lyrics and the music for a Broadway musical. Stellar support surrounded Sondheim on all levels: I just named some of the cast, the future director of his landmark 1970s musicals, Harold Prince, produced Forum and the legendary George Abbott (then 75) directed. Jack Cole, currently undergoing a bit of a resurrection in terms of his reputation, choreographed the show and the book, based on three works by Plautus, famed playwright of ancient Rome (c. 254-184 B.C.). came from the pens of Burt Shevelove, a writer-director from early TV, and Larry Gelbart, whose best known credit at the time was as part of the many talented writers working for Sid Caesar on Your Show of Shows but who would go on to turn Robert Altman's MASH into the hit TV series M^A*S*H, be one of the Oscar-nominated (and credited) co-writers of Tootsie, writer of one of the first great HBO movies, Barbarians at the Gate, and author of the book for the Cy Coleman/David Zippel musical City of Angels. On a personal level, Forum holds a special place in my heart because it happens to be the first musical that I ever saw performed live — and Carradine played Marcus Lycus in the production. No, I'm not much older than you thought. I was only 10 at that time and it happened to be a touring summer stock production 17 years after he created the role in the original Broadway show. Somehow, it seems only appropriate that both the first Broadway musical and the last Broadway show I saw featured scores by Sondheim (Passion and Assassins, if you're curious) and so did my irst live musical, even if at 10 I hadn't the slightest notion who Sondheim was. Anyone who knows me personally or has read this blog for any length of time realizes what a devoted Sondheim acolyte I am and, without question, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum certainly must be considered the most entertaining and crowd-pleasing of all musicals for which he composed the score. As much as I love his music, it's also sadly true in far too many cases that Sondheim's scores often end up being vastly superior to the books of his musicals. With Forum, that cannot be said. When you read what Sondheim wrote in his book Finishing the Hat or heard what others said in reviews, Forum may stand as the rare instance of a Sondheim musical where the book actually supersedes the score in quality. Hey, it was Sondheim's first produced show as composer as well as lyricist after all. Before that, he'd only served both functions on his unproduced musical Saturday Night. His Broadway experiences had been limited to being the lyricist (to Leonard Bernstein's music) on West Side Story and (to Jule Styne's music) on Gypsy. As we begin, I should tell you that if you see a link, by all means click on it. For example, at the top the first link on a song title takes you to the original Broadway cast recording of that song from the 1962 production. Sometimes the links direct you to videos, other times just to the songs, but I wanted to get as much comparison in as I could.
Now, a lot of funny things did occur on the way to the Forum (though, technically speaking, no character in the show ever discusses a trip to that famous location in ancient Rome), but getting the musical to Broadway proved to be an entirely different matter. That trip encountered many bumps that threatened to scuttle the production before Forum ever crossed the New York state line, let alone landed on a Broadway stage. Those associated with the show who still walk among us might be able to look back with some relief now (though in Finishing the Hat, Sondheim does deal himself some heavy self-criticism about his work on the show even now, despite the fact that Forum remains the biggest hit of his career). Sondheim writes that he, Gelbart and Shevelove wrote Forum over a four-year period and that the show went through two major producers, two major directors and a major star before getting to the rehearsal stage. Meryle Secrest's biography, Stephen Sondheim: A Life, spells out the specifics of his statement.
Secrest quotes Sondheim about the dogged pursuit of Jerome Robbins, who would never settle on a decision about whether to direct the show or not. "The problem was we went to numbers of producers and directors. Jerry Robbins kept saying yes, then no, and then yes, and then no. We went to Joshua Logan and he wanted more naked boys and things like that. I went to Hal (Prince) and he said, 'Listen, kid, you know me. I hate farce.'…David Merrick agreed to produce. Then we were trying to get Jerry Robbins again. And Jerry said, 'OK, I'll tell you what. I'll do it, but I won't do it with David Merrick. You have to get it away from him." In Secrest's book, Sondheim expresses guilt for making up a lie to Merrick about the show not happening and returning an advance to Merrick but it did convince Prince to sign on though Robbins bailed again. Evemtually, they got George Abbott on board as director, but Robbins would return to play a pivotal role. The search for a lead also proved difficult. Their first choice, Phil Silvers, who eventually would portray Marcus Lycus in Richard Lester's 1966 film version and Pseudolus in the 1972 revival, rejected it out of hand because he couldn't perform while wearing his glasses and he'd be unable to navigate without them. Milton Berle agreed to star but when Gelbart and Shevelove turned in a draft of the book that would have run about four hours and received orders to make cuts (which they did), Berle claimed they removed his best stuff and quit. That's how Mostel got the part. In Secrest's book, Sondheim said that years later Mostel would claim that he didn't want to do Forum, but the truth was he needed the work badly and leaped at the part. Mostel's career, as had many others, had suffered during the McCarthy era, the House Un-American Activities Committee hearings and the Hollywood blacklist. One hitch: When Robbins returned to help the troubled show later, he'd face the glare of Mostel because Robbins had served as a friendly witness at the HUAC hearings. To make things worse, one of the names he named was Madeline Gilford, wife of Jack Gilford, who was playing Hysterium. Sondheim though sensed other problems.
Sondheim sought the advice of his friend James Goldman, who at this point in his career had written an original play that made it to Broadway and later would pen both the play and movie of The Lion in Winter as well as the book for Sondheim's Follies. Goldman also did some songwriting, so Sondheim let him look at the book for Forum and listen to the songs he had at that point, when the opening number was a song called "Love Is in the Air." According to what Sondheim wrote in Finishing the Hat, Goldman labeled Gelbart and Shevelove's book as "brilliant" and expressed enthusiasm about Sondheim's score. "The problem," Goldman said, "is they don't go together." Sondheim knew what Goldman meant, but he didn't start doing anything about it right then. Sondheim wrote that he'd been "trained by (Oscar) Hammerstein to think of a song as a one-act play which either intensifies a moment or moves the story the forward.…Prodded by my academic musical training as well as by Oscar, I had become accustomed to thinking of songs as being structured in sonata form: statement, development and recapitulation. For Oscar, it was first act, second act, third act. He tried to avoid writing lyrics that confined themselves to one idea, the traditional approach of every lyricist in the theater and the standard function of songs before he came along and revolutionized the way writers thought about musicals. Show Boat hadn't convinced them but once Oklahoma!, Carousel and South Pacific had become enormous hits, most songwriters converted. The success of those were not entirely beneficial however." In Finishing the Hat, Sondheim noted something Gelbart wrote in his introduction to the published libretto of Forum. "Broadway in its development of musical comedy had improved the quality of the former at the expense of a great deal of the latter," Gelbart wrote.
At one point — frustrated as he tried to unlearn all he knew about composing and fearing he did the show more harm than good — Sondheim even suggested Forum should just be a straight play, but Shevelove said it would be too frenetic and the audience would have no space to breathe (without songs). He informed the composer that the few surviving plays by Plautus sll had songs. Sondheim did end up composing an opening song more in keeping with the spirit of the show that would follow called "Invocation." That also would be dropped but would return in a 1974 farce that Shevelove "freely adapted" from Aristophanes called The Frogs and to which Sondheim added "Instructions to the Audience," which is the only way you can listen to that number now, as in this cut from its 2004 Broadway debut sung by Nathan Lane, Roger Bart and the ensemble. Sondheim writes honestly in his book that he didn't think much of George Abbott's talent or sense of humor — saying they had to explain a joke to the old man once, but Abbott's reputation for saving shows had achieved legendary status and as the show suffered in Washington to scathing reviews and small audiences in big houses (50 people filling 1,000 seats) not laughing a bit, Sondheim described to Secrest the only time Abbott made him laugh "when he said, 'I dunno. You had better call in George Abbott.'" Obviously, that wasn't an option, but given Robbins' worship of Abbott, that made it easier to call him in, though they worried about Mostel's reaction. Part of this can be seen in a clip from a one-man show called Zero Hour written and performed by Jim Brochu and presented at the West Coast Jewish Theatre.
At the time Robbins named names before the House Un-American Activities Committee, he didn't really have a career beyond New York, so his motives always have proved puzzling and he never settled the question before his death, The most pervasive theory, as seen on an American Masters profile on PBS a couple of years ago and detailed in biographies such as this one on The Official Masterworks Broadway Site that he got blackmailed into testifying out of fear that the rather open secret of his homosexuality would be revealed. (He felt secure
enough to declare himself gay to get out of service in World War II.) The site says, "Robbins was booked for an appearance on Ed Sullivan’s Sunday night variety show (The Toast of the Town), but three weeks before the event, Sullivan, convinced that Robbins was a Communist (he had attended the notorious Scientific and Cultural Conference for World Peace at the Waldorf-Astoria in 1949), canceled the contract. It was Sullivan — threatening at one point to expose him as a homosexual if he did not deliver (directly to Sullivan himself!) a list of names of leftists in show business — who set the machinery in motion that brought Robbins under investigation by the FBI and landed him, two years later, before the House Un-American Activities Committee." Whatever the truth might be, Robbins' uncredited contributions to Forum not only saved the musical, they also changed the way new musicals got their starts forever.
Earlier in the flirtation process, before tryouts had started and Robbins continued to flirt with the idea of directing the show, he demanded that the principals cast the show, get them all in a room to read the script for him while Sondheim performed the songs. In essence, Robbins invented the theater workshop. Prince and Sondheim actually found it helpful at pointing out flaws in the show and repeated the process with their classic collaborations in the 1970s, though Sondheim doesn't like what the practice ended up evolving into later. "What had begun as a learning experience for the authors became transmogrified into thinly disguised backers' auditions," he wrote in Finishing the Hat. As for his contributions to Forum, as soon as he saw "Invocation," Robbins recognized the problem. Secrest wrote in her biography of Sondheim, According to Sondheim, (Robbins) said, "The opening
number is killing the show. You open with a charming number and the audience does not know what it's in for, that it's a real farce. You've got to write an opening number that says baggy pants." Sondheim went back to the drawing board and the show's most famous song, "Comedy Tonight," was born and Robbins did the staging, specifically telling Sondheim to leave the jokes to him. Sondheim wrote in Finishing the Hat that Robbins also staged the massive Act II chase, meaning that though he received no official credit, Robbins essentially choreographed the two most important pieces of movement in the show. Still, it isn't as if no one realizes he did it. When Robbins directed his own tribute show, Jerome Robbins' Broadway, re-creating his most famous stage creations the show included "Comedy Tonight" with Jason Alexander taking on the Pseudolus role for that number. In fact, three men have been nominated for Tonys for playing Pseudolus in the three Broadway productions of Forum and a fourth inhabited the role for one scene in another show and all four — Zero Mostel, Phil Silvers, Jason Alexander and Nathan Lane — took home Tony Awards. No other part in theater history can make that claim. The song has attained a level of such popularity you'd be amazed by the permutations you can find on the Internet. In fact, I did a separate post on those alone. Unfortunately, no visual record of the 1962 version exists. Instead, we'll start with a poorly shot bootleg of the 1996 revival starring Nathan Lane as Pseudolus (and Prologus, the character the lead actor plays when introducing the show.) If unfamiliar with the show or what I'm talking about, the song spells it out pretty clearly. I actually got to see the 1996 revival.After the disastrous runs in Washington and New Haven, Conn., once Robbins had put the bug in Sondheim's ear about the opening number, he writes in Finishing the Hat that "Comedy Tonight" was composed over the course of a weekend. What is it about pressure
and/or inspiration that some of the greatest works seem to be created when it gets to be crunch time? Most people know the story of Arthur Miller writing the first act of Death of a Salesman in less than a day. Forum opened 50 years ago tonight at The Alvin Theatre where it played through March 7, 1864 when it transferred to The Mark Hellinger Theatre for two months before completing its run through Aug. 29, 1965 at The Majestic Theatre for a total of eight previews and 964 performances. In 1966, a film version with Mostel and Gilford repeating their stage roles and featuring future Phantom of the Opera Michael Crawford opened. Richard Lester, hot off directing The Beatles' films A Hard Day's Night and Help!, helmed the Forum movie. The film eliminated some songs but it also gave Sondheim his first opportunity to design a song specifically for a movie. In Finishing the Hat, he writes about penning a different version of "Free," heard here from the 1962 cast album. He confesses to being a lifelong movie buff and having made some home movies where he especially enjoyed the editing process. (Who doesn't want to see some of these as long as they're suitable for general audiences?) Lester told Sondheim, the composer wrote, that he approved and that his idea would work but Lester never filmed the sequence. "(A)lthough in the finished print, there's a curiously clumsy cut at the place where I'd cued the song, which makes me think it was at least planned. Rereading it now, I wish he had. I didn't get the chance to design another for 26 years, when I wrote two sequences for the movie of A Little Night Music, one of which was filmed the way I wrote it, one of which was not." This clip shows Mostel doing the song during the movie's opening credits.While Sondheim accepted Shevelove's notion that the musical numbers allowed the audience a chance to take a breath from the chaos consuming the stage, he still disagrees to this day about the suitability of stopping a farce for a song. In Finishing the Hat, he wrote, "Although I do think that the book of Forum is the tightest, most satisfyingly plotted and gratifyingly written farce I've ever encountered, I don't think that farces can be transformed into musicals without damage — at least, not good musicals. The tighter the plotting, the better the farce, but the better the farce the more the songs interrupt the flow and pace. Farces are express trains; musicals are locals." We can't see what Mostel looked like onstage singing "Comedy Tonight" in 1962, but we do have a clip of him performing a condensed version of the song at the 1971 Tony Awards.
"I had to write one-joke songs so I picked spots for them where the situations would supply substance: Songs like 'Impossible' and the drag version of 'Lovely,' which were dramatically static but theatrically funny. My mistake was that in trying to unlearn everything Oscar (Hammerstein) had taught me and write static songs which were nothing more than playful, I felt I had to justify them with cleverness, by juggling with words, leaning on rhymes, puns, alliteration and all the other boilerplate devices of light verse," Sondheim wrote. (Links: "Impossible" and "Lovely (Reprise)" both from 1962 original cast album.) Both in his own book and Secrest's, Sondheim praises producer Hal Prince's faith in the show, saying that most producers who endured the tryouts that Forum did in New
Haven and Washington would have closed the show down and never brought it to New York. Prince didn't — and it paid off. The show would turn out to be a blockbuster, admittedly one with a few more hurdles to clear before it reached that point. When Robbins came in to help, everyone worried about the volatile Mostel's reaction. However, he'd behaved as a complete professional with nary an explosion up to this point in the chaotic production, according to Secrest's book. As they hurriedly rehearsed "Comedy Tonight" in New York, the stress weighed on the actors as Sondheim recounted in Secrest's book. "'We got to the afternoon of the first preview with our opening number, the one we hoped would change the show. And we were rehearsing and Zero kept screwing up his lines.' So once when Robbins stopped to consult with Tony Walton, the set designer, Sondheim went down to the footlights — 'I never, never give an actor a critical note in front of other people' — to correct one of Mostel's lines. 'Right, right, right,' Mostel said impatiently. They began again, and again Robbins stopped. Mostel was still making mistakes. 'And I said, "Please, I know you've got a lot on your mind, but it's the plural, not the singular." "Yeah. Yeah." The third time, Jerry stops again — 'Zero, it's the plural!' — and Mostel says in a booming voice that fills the entire theater and makes everyone start and turn around, he says, "Well, maybe if you'd write me a funny line, you cocksucker!" In front of everybody.' There was a silence that lasted for about four seconds. 'And in the back of the house, Mr. Abbott went, "All right, from the top please" and clapped his hands." Sondheim goes on to describe how Abbott defuse the tension that quickly and he realized that was part of the man's greatness. He also believes that Mostel made him the scapegoat for the anger he wanted to hurl in Robbins' direction.
In wrapping up this tribute's first half, I must praise the invention of Twitter, which introduced me to a man who not only witnessed the original production of Forum (as well as other original Broadway shows such as South Pacific with Mary Martin and Ezio Pinza, Fiddler on the Roof, also starring Mostel and featuring Bea Arthur, Bert Convy, Leonard Frey and Austin Pendleton and, the one that makes me green with envy, Ethel Merman in Gypsy — with Jack Klugman along as Herbie), but whose father became Mostel's doctor and, because of similar backgrounds, eventually the actor's good friend. Pietr Hitzig, also a doctor, wrote me briefly about his memories of those days. "I am 70 years old and as a NYC child had no idea what fantastic theater I was seeing.…Zero died at only 62 years old and had his most productive years destroyed by the witch hunters at the HUAC but is immortal for Fiddler, Forum and The Producers.…Nobody can play any of those roles today without remembering the bushy eyebrows and satanic leer," Hitzig wrote. On Twitter, Hitzig tweeted that his father saw Fiddler on the Roof at least 100 times. Imagine how inexpensive Broadway tickets cost to allow that back in the 1960s. I only paid to see one Broadway show twice (Rent) and saw another a second time because one ticket came to me as a freebie (Ragtime). (Piotr corrected me after I posted this that his father didn't pay all those times. He got free tickets.) "My father was a renowned Park Avenue doctor but lonely as hell as was Zero. They, children of the shtetl loved each other like brothers. Both were funny but had an angry side that alienated their families. After a busy day, rather than come home, my dad would head for Broadway and stand backstage as his idealized childhood in Fiddler was played out once again," Hitzig wrote. In The New York Times archives, I found a funny story that did illustrate Mostel's tendency to get riled. The British comedian Frankie Howerd, who would play Pseudolus in the London premiere of Forum in fall 1963, came to see the U.S. version earlier in 1963. Seated in the front row, Howerd tended to cover his mouth when amused so Mostel misinterpreted that he wasn't laughing at the show at all. "He is not laughing." the article says Mostel complained between numbers. The next day, Howerd, in an apologetic tone, insisted that he enjoyed the show. "I'm not a laugher. I don't lean back and flash my teeth. Actually, if anyone was frightened that night it was me, seeing how good Mostel was," Howerd told Louis Calta at The Times.
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Labels: Altman, Arthur Miller, Awards, Beatles, blacklist, Books, Gelbart, H. Prince, Hammerstein, HBO, J. Carradine, J. Robbins, Merman, Music, Musicals, Phil Silvers, Sid Caesar, Sondheim, Theater Tribute
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Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Act II: Plenty of roads to try
By Edward Copeland
Those three people laughing above, if you don't recognize them, play a large part in the next chapter of Merrily We Roll Along, the chapter that began to resuscitate the show from its near-death Broadway experience as a musical Old Yeller,
certain to be taken out and shot for its own good. As I mentioned in Act I (which if you somehow got here first and didn't read it, click here), I've never been fortunate enough to see a production of the show so I know it only by its score, which I love. (Full disclosure: Just what I gleaned of the story from the score and reading liner notes, it never quite seemed logical to me for a successful composer to transform himself suddenly into a successful movie producer. How would that work? Anyway, I digress.) From left to right, they are Chip Zien, John Rubinstein and Heather Mac Rae, and in June 1985, those three performers took on the roles of Charley Kringas, Franklin Shepherd and Mary Flynn, respectively, when The La Jolla Playhouse in La Jolla, Calif., decided to stage the show. Now, Merrily did have one intervening production between Broadway and La Jolla — The Guildhall School of Music of Drama in London gave the musical its European premiere in March 1983 and later transferred it for a run of about a week at London's Bloomsbury Theatre. However, that production didn't receive the input and cooperation of Stephen Sondheim to write new songs, rewrite old songs and dump some songs altogether and George Furth to revise the libretto. This Merrily was directed by James Lapine, who had just completed his first collaboration with Sondheim as director and book-writer on Sunday in the Park with George, which won the new team the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and still was playing on Broadway as they began tinkering with Merrily We Roll Along in California. In Finishing the Hat, Sondheim describes that La Jolla production as "The critical moment in the rehabilitation of Merrily We Roll Along" going on to emphasize that Lapine, "being both a writer and a director, firmly suggested that casting young but experienced adults rather than talented but inexperienced teenagers was only part of the solution: in order to accommodate the change in casting, the writing would have to be reexamined as well." Both Sondheim and Furth attended rehearsals for the La Jolla production, making changes to both book and score. No longer did Merrily begin with Frank giving a commencement address. Instead, it opens with him at a big Hollywood post-premiere party. Gone were songs such as "The Hills of Tomorrow" and "Rich and Happy," added were new tunes "Growing Up," "That Frank" and "The Blob" and others that stayed got revisions. While gather as much material as I could preparing for this, I stumbled upon a fascinating blog called The Ugly Bug Ball. The author had an entry dated Oct. 5 of this year called "My Sondheim Summer." It is a fascinating read that I'm not going to spoil here, but you should read for yourself about a college student studying technical theater at San Diego State who volunteered to work on a show at the La Jolla Playhouse having no idea that it would be Merrily
We Roll Along (revised edition) and that Sondheim, Furth and John Rubinstein would be there or that when it opened, it would attract celebrities such as Gene Hackman. The writer tells of some wild events during rehearsals and performances including a fire alarm going off after it opened and also reminds me of outside events happening around that time in the summer of 1985 such as New Coke. Check it out. Another member of the cast playing the role of Beth was Marin Mazzie, who would later earn a Tony nomination as featured actress in a musical as Clara in Passion the most recent original Sondheim show to premiere on Broadway. She also received lead actress nominations for the musical Ragtime and the revival of Kiss Me, Kate opposite Brian Stokes Mitchell. In five years, she'd play Beth in Merrily again. Sylvie Drake, reviewing for The Los Angeles Times, found this Merrily to be better, but thought it could still use work. "Certainly the Merrily that opened Sunday night at the La Jolla Playhouse is an improvement over the Broadway original, but it's not improved enough," Drake wrote, adding later, "If this Merrily requires anything, it is, in fact, more shaving. The streamlining Furth did on his book isn't sufficient. Having thrown off earlier shackles (including, at the top of the list, the monstrous Broadway set by Eugene Lee that did everything but slice and spit up actors), this Merrily deserved to really roll. It doesn't." Dan Sullivan, also writing for the L.A. Times, wrote on the day of the last La Jolla performance a piece that asked if the production were good enough to take to New York. The headline though misled, based only on a high demand for tickets, not Sullivan's opinion of the production, though he admits he never saw the original for comparison. "Something's missing in Merrily II. It is not skill of presentation. The piece has the snap of a Broadway show, with a cast that one might well see on Broadway.…It rolls backward, however — which brings up a problem that has dogged Merrily We Roll Along ever since Kaufman and Hart wrote it as a straight play in 1934. To wit: How to interest an audience in a story when you have already shown them how it comes out?" Needless to say, the La Jolla Merrily didn't go to New York.It was now 1990 — 10 years since the original Merrily We Roll Along had planned to start rehearsals. Five years after the mostly positive reception to the revised version staged in La Jolla, another version was about to be produced by Arena Stage in Washington at the Kreeger Theater. It opened Jan. 30 and ran through April 8, by far the longest run of any Merrily so far. The three lead roles were filled by Victor Garber as Frank, David Garrison as Charley and Becky Ann Baker as Mary. Marin Mazzie repeated the role of Beth she played in La Jolla. More tinkering with the book and the songs took place. "The Hills of Tomorrow" returned at the end. Gussie, Frank's second wife who is an older star and used to be married to the producer Joe, got two reprises of "Growing Up," the new one added to the first act. Lyricist and
book-writer Bill Russell, who had a job that allowed him to type the script of the original, journeyed to D.C. to see the production. "I thought they made a very wise decision — casting older actors. It was much easier to accept starting with them older and then going backward to when they were young," Russell told me. "The other way…was much harder to swallow. It just didn't make sense for the characters to first appear as middle-aged and jaded and be played by all those fresh (and super talented) faces." Someone else paid a return visit for the Arena production: Frank Rich. The headline on his review read, A Show Keeps Coming Back, Getting Closer on Every Orbit. "At the end of Merrily We Roll Along, three young people of 1957, all with dreams of theatrical or literary glory, stand on a roof in New York City to spot Sputnik, a symbol of their high hopes, as it streaks across a starry sky. Nine years after its failure on Broadway, Merrily continues to follow its own alluring, elusive trajectory through the musical theater," Rich wrote. "In various revised versions, this Stephen Sondheim-George Furth adaptation of the 1934 play by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart has been sighted at small companies from Los Angeles to London in recent seasons. Each production raises the hopes of partisans that a resurrected Merrily will soon redeem their faith in the show by splashing down triumphantly in New York. Arena Stage's rendition of the musical…is the closest the reworked Merrily has gotten to Broadway — geographically, at least. One hopes the authors will not let up now. As it stands in Washington, the much improved Merrily still falls short of its exceptional score…There's still some work for Mr. Sondheim and Mr. Furth to do." Merrily would stop in Leicester, England, two years later (without "The Hills of Tomorrow" again), but then after that it would return to New York, albeit not Broadway.As Maxwell Smart used to say, "Missed it by thatmuch." The year 1994 was the first time I traveled to New York to see a Broadway show. I did it in April to see both halves of the play Angels in America. I returned soon after and squeezed a show in while on a movie junket — a
Sondheim show no less. I saw Passion while it still was in previews. Of course, I love that score but at the same time, The York Theatre Company was presenting director Susan H. Schulman's revised Merrily We Roll Along at St. Peter's Church. I hadn't heard the reviews or heard the CD and didn't know the city well enough to realize it actually was closer to my hotel than Passion was. I wouldn't have wanted to have to choose anyway, though in retrospect — fuck! Then, you are reading someone who, before other things happened like losing a dear friend to a heart defect no one knew she had and having made a mistake by having a surgery that has left me bedridden and unable to travel far or see theater, I always said if time travel were possible, I'd first use it to see Ethel Merman live in Gypsy. Every road has a turning, that's the way you keep learning. By this time, Frank Rich had given up the theater beat to be an invaluable op-ed columnist and David Richards was serving his very brief tenure as The New York Times' chief theater critic. "When it opened it 1981, Merrily We Roll Along had a dazzling score that put stars in your eyes, and a troublesome book that left a sour taste in your mouth. While the show folded after 16 performances on Broadway, no one was willing to lay it to rest," Richards wrote. "If the book could be tidied up and some of its sourness tempered, the thinking went, the creators would surely have a full-fledged hit on their hands. The repair work began with a revival at the La Jolla Playhouse in California in 1985 and continued at Arena Stage in Washington in 1990. Still more adjustments were made two years ago at the Haymarket Theater in Leicester, England. Now the new and revised Merrily We Roll
Along can be seen at the Theater at St. Peter's Church in a spirited production by the York Theater Company. The score, having acquired several new numbers over the years, is, if anything, more brilliant than ever. As for the book, half of it, the second half, is moving in a deeply melancholy way. Getting there is the problem. It always was." Vincent Canby, who was serving as The Times' Sunday theater critic after decades of reviewing films, did have some nice things to say, though he showed that it's hard to remove the movie references from an aging critic's brain who just switched beats. "Only Crazy for You on Broadway, has a pop score to match the songs in Merrily We Roll Along, including the title number, which provides the transitions between the scenes. These transitions, sung by various members of the company, are reminiscent of the visual transitions by which Luis Buñuel connected the episodes in his surreal dream of a comedy The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie: six friends stride with implacable but breezy purpose down a country road through a field of golden wheat. In much the same way, the characters in Merrily We Roll Along march, heads up, through the fine Sondheim score to their predestined fates," Canby wrote. Despite what any critics said, the score already had given Merrily a cult status and when a recording of the York production came out, that almost saved its stature. I'm a huge Sondheim fan and I've managed to see productions of most of his shows and, inevitably, the assessment almost always turns out the same: Magnificent score, weak book. Of the Sondheim shows I have seen, the only one that really managed to have a book that equaled Sondheim's songs was Hugh Wheeler's book for Sweeney Todd.Social media truly can be a wondrous thing. As it allowed me to get comments from original cast members Liz Callaway and Tonya Pinkins and lyricist/book-writer Bill Russell for this piece, I also got responses from others, including two who were in that great York Theatre Company production. Danny Burstein, who played three roles in the show — Ru, The Floor Manager and a Pianist — can be seen on stage,
screen and TV. He received a Tony nomination for the recent revival of Rodgers and Hammerstein's South Pacific, plays the recurring role of casino manager Lolly Steinman on Boardwalk Empire and will be seen next year in the film Nor'easter. "I had no idea we salvaged the reputation of the show. My memory of the production, which was about 17 years ago, is slightly vague now, sadly. All I know is that Steve was happy and George was happy. They felt it worked and that was good enough for me," Burstein told me. "I remember coming offstage after the curtain call and Steve hugging Susan Schulman saying 'Yes, yes,' as if she'd finally solved it and figured it out. The show worked." The other York cast member who spoke with me I'm proud to boast that I've spoken with online and for real long before I thought about this article. Anne Bobby, who played Beth in the York production, has done a little bit of everything and still does, but I'd hate to pick out any of her credits for her. "I was honored to work with Steve on Merrily — of all his shows, that's the one I've always felt elicits the most heartfelt fondness from both actors and audiences. The universality of the theme — how we become who we are — to me makes the show his most poignant and personal," Anne said to me. (I feel funny using her first name and everyone else's last name, but like I said I communicate with her more and Bobby sounds like a first name also.) "What gets me about Merrily is that different aspects of the show affect me more deeply than others as I get older. When I was playing Beth at the York I was 27, and “Our Time” was the moment that brought tears to my eyes. Through my 30s, “Good Thing Going” did the same. Now in 2011, surprisingly, it's “Now You Know” that sends a charge through me. Who knows what song will be the resonating soundtrack in my head when I retire? But again, that's the miracle of Merrily — we roll, we just roll, and the songs roll, too." 
The musical's story didn't end at the York. In 2000, the Donmar Warehouse in London did one and they must have gone old school — they brought back "The Hills of Tomorrow" at the beginning and the end, dumped "That Frank" and restored "Rich and Happy." In 2002, Merrily came back twice. Once as part of a Sondheim celebration at the Kennedy Center where they performed in repertory for four months, in addition to Merrily, productions of Sweeney Todd, Company, Sunday in the Park With George, Passion and A Little Night Music. Eric Schaeffer, artistic director of The Signature Theatre in Arlington, Virg., served as artistic director for the Kennedy Center festival. Later in 2002, for one night only, the original Broadway cast reunited for a one-night concert for charity that pretty much stuck to the original song list, though it added "Growing Up," "The Blob" and "Thank You for Coming," a song cut before previews. The Kennedy Center cast included Emily Skinner, who shared a Tony nomination for lead actress in a musical with Alice Ripley as Skinner played Daisy Hilton to Ripley's Violet Hilton, the conjoined twins at the center of Side Show, whose lyrics and book Bill Russell wrote. In Merrily, she got to play Gussie, the star who steals Frank away from his first wife Beth. "Merrily is one of my very favorite musicals I've ever had the joy to be in. Fantastic score, gritty, smart book. Like all of Sondheim's work, so brilliantly thought out, exploring complicated yet universal themes. Merrily is a juicy gem," Skinner told me. "We reveled in throwing ourselves into it. And our Kennedy Center cast was absolutely sublime." Since Beth and Gussie are two of the major roles in the show, I asked both actresses what it was like to age backward live. Skinner said she "didn't really find it particularly difficult. The costumes and wigs did most of the work." For Anne, it remained about the music, not the aging or the chronology. "Moving back in time didn't have as much of an effect on my show as the music. What a workout that show was — we were all like athletes, assembling every night for a full vocal warmup that was critical. We were un-amplified, on a stage that had exactly one
place where you could really project and the sound bounced off the walls instead of getting absorbed by them," she said. "By the end of the run my diaphragm had expanded to the point where some of my costumes barely fit. The show changed the way I sang, changed the way I interpreted song and ultimately, changed the way I looked at my future — and my past. Which is what I think Merrily does for everyone." Though I haven't seen the show, having love those other works that went backward, I don't think the reverse chronology dooms it to failure. That problem can be solved. Burstein agrees. "I think the backwards motion of the musical can work well. It's intriguing, isn't it?" Burstein said. "To see where the characters wind up first and then watch how they got there? The musical takes the concept and expands on it delivering on of Steve's most brilliant scores. But, what score by Sondheim is not one of the most brilliant things you've ever heard?" The music certainly proved infectious to Skinner and her castmates, even between acts. "One of my fondest memories was of dancing (with wild, silly abandon) with the entire cast onstage right behind the curtain to Jonathan Tunick's amazing 'Entr'acte' music. A party every night," Skinner said. "One night, Sondheim actually came and watched us do this, as apparently word of our ridiculous dance rave had reached him. Yes, that production was absolutely one of my favorite theatrical experiences." The show's story doesn't end there either. Eric Schaeffer in 2002 directed his own production of Merrily at his Signature Theatre. There have been too many others to catch them all. Director John Doyle, who brought revivals of Company and Sweeney Todd to Broadway where the actors also played the instruments, did the same with Merrily in Cincinnati. Early next year, Encores plans its concert version directed by James Lapine, which already has added an extra week of performances. Several Encores productions have then made the leap to Broadway, the most famous being the still-running Chicago. Could it happen again? The City Center even has produced a YouTube ad for the Merrily concert.I thought it would only be fair that I toss out some plugs for the people who were kind enough to give me comments for this post. I also thought I'd try to put a song in a link with their name, though not necessarily from Merrily We Roll Along. In alphabetical order:
Anne never would give me something she's working on, but I know she's been writing and helping feed the Occupy Wall Street protesters.
Burstein currently plays Buddy Plummer opposite Bernadette Peters in Eric Schaeffer's acclaimed revival of Sondheim's Follies on Broadway through Jan. 22.
Callaway and her sister, Ann Hampton Callaway, will co-host the annual Yuletide Celebration with the Indianapolis Symphony in Indianapolis from Dec. 2–23. She's almost always performing somewhere. Check out her Facebook Fan Appreciation page for information.
Pinkins appears in the play Milk Like Sugar at Playwrights Horizons' Peter Jay Sharp Theater through Nov. 27.
Unexpected Joy, Russell's new musical with composer Janet Hood, will have its first reading in early December.
Skinner is playing Mrs. Wilkinson in the 2009 Tony-winning best musical Billy Elliot at the Imperial Theatre through its closing Jan. 8.
Thanks to all of them for helping me out.
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Labels: Awards, Boardwalk Empire, Books, Buñuel, Hackman, Hammerstein, Merman, Music, Musicals, Rodgers, Sondheim, Theater Tribute
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Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Gilliam's Other Holy Grail Movie
By Damian Arlyn
In a perfect world, not only would I see every film on the big screen but I would know absolutely nothing about them beforehand. Once in a while I am reminded that the best way to see a movie is with no foreknowledge whatsoever as to the film's genre, cast or plot. To go in having no preconceived notions about how one ought to feel or what one ought to think about it — no expectations for how impressed one is supposed to be by the performances, sets, costumes, budget, etc. — but to simply approach the work on its own terms and be either carried away by the reality it creates for itself or be alienated from that reality based solely on the competence with which it weaves its tale would be my ideal. Of course, I realize that we do not live in such a world. Even if it were possible to see every film in the theater (which, for many people it is not, due to physical limitations or economic difficulties) I'm not sure I'd want to given how awful so many movies are nowadays. If I could somehow be guaranteed ahead of time of a film's quality, I'd be willing to go into every film-viewing experience completely "pure" and uncorrupted by any outside information or influence. As it is, I can recount the exact number of times I went to a movie under such circumstances. It has happened precisely twice. The first was The Fisher King. The second was The Usual Suspects. Since the former celebrates its 20th anniversary today, it is that title with which I will be concerning myself.
My dad took me to see The Fisher King when I was 15 and, as I've said, I knew very little about it outside of its enigmatic title and the fact that it starred Robin Williams and Jeff Bridges (a fact I was able to glean from the marquee poster on the outside of the theater). I had no idea that the story involved a cynical, egotistical Manhattan radio "shock jock" named Jack Lucas (Bridges) whose careless on-air remarks prompt a disturbed caller to open fire with a shotgun in a restaurant full of yuppies before turning the gun on himself.
Racked with guilt, Jack descends into a deep depression and alcoholism for three years during which time he shacks up with a self-assured New York woman named Anne (Mercedes Ruehl) who owns a video store. On a particularly bleak night, Jack attempts suicide but two young hoodlums who find him and start pouring gasoline on him intending to set him ablaze interrupt him when he is saved by Parry (Williams) a homeless man who believes he's a knight sent on a quest from God to find the Holy Grail. Jack soon learns that Parry's insanity stems from his traumatic experience in the restaurant the night of the shooting when his wife was one of the seven people killed. Feeling responsible and, in a desperate attempt to ease his conscience, Jack resolves to help Parry in some way and thinks he may have discovered how when he notices Parry pining from afar for a mousy woman named Lydia (Amanda Plummer). I didn't know any of this going in.
Despite (or perhaps because of) my ignorance of the film prior to seeing it, I was positively captivated by it from beginning to end. Somehow it weaved a magical spell over me. As the cliche goes, I had never seen anything like it before. It quickly became my favorite film and remained so for a couple of years. I bought the soundtrack, which featured segments from the wonderful score by George Fenton, and even found a copy of the novelization to help enrich my understanding of the story and its themes, all of which resonated quite strongly with me: love, loss, forgiveness and especially redemption.
I also did not know who Terry Gilliam was. I didn't even really know about Monty Python yet, so I certainly didn't know that The Fisher King wasn't his first cinematic foray into the subject of the Holy Grail (though I was at least acquainted with the Grail having seen Indiana Jones search for the thing two years prior). I didn't know that this was a rare occasion where Gilliam, who normally writes his own screenplays, was really a director-for-hire. After the debacle that was The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, Gilliam was looking for a smaller and more intimate story to tell and he found it in the unique and spellbinding screenplay written by Richard LaGravenese (who would go on to pen The Ref, Beloved and The Bridges of Madison County). Interestingly, when I watch the film now — having seen the rest of Gilliam's oeuvre and being a big admirer of his work — it seems like a project tailor-made for Gilliam and his personal pet interests such as reality versus fantasy, imagination as an escape from tragedy, medieval knights in shining armor, etc.
The film is filled with dozens of entrancing and unforgettable scenes. The sweet and hilarious double date that begins with Lydia clumsily knocking things over (with Parry doing the same in an attempt to make her feel less awkward) and ends with everyone in hysterics before Williams sings a sweet and simple rendition of "Lydia the Tattooed Lady," the frightening chases involving the Red Knight, the climactic sequence where Jack attempts to retrieve the Grail from its "castle" (all the while commenting to himself on how crazy it is), the nightmarish flashbacks to the murders at the restaurant and Michael Jeter's audacious Ethel Merman-style musical number delivered to a flabbergasted Lydia are just a few. However, my all-time favorite sequence from the film occurs in Grand Central Station. It begins with Parry looking through the crowd for Lydia. When he finally glimpses her, he smiles and the music starts. She walks right past him and suddenly a couple dances by in the background as the cute little ditty that was playing transitions into a beautiful waltz. Soon that couple is followed by another and another until everyone in Grand Central is waltzing around Parry as he follows Lydia across the floor. It's a charming sequence and apparently was not in the original script but was the brainchild of Gilliam, who needed a way to visually capture how bewitched Parry is with his fair maiden. It's sublime.
The performances by all the actors are excellent. Jeff Bridges may be enjoying somewhat of a rejuvenation in his career currently, but at the time of The Fisher King he was just another solid, respected but somewhat underrated actor (like Johnny Depp before Pirates of the Caribbean or Robert Downey Jr. before Iron Man). His portrayal of the selfish, cynical jerk is actually the emotional anchor of the story.
He's the straight man off of whom Williams can play his performance as Parry, a variation on his usual manic screen persona, though here it is put to good use in the guise of an insane, but brilliant, former history professor who even in madness has an entire library of references from which to draw upon in his ravings (one can almost imagine that had Williams' character from Dead Poets Society lost his mind, the results might look something like this). What makes Williams' performance superior to his usual fare are the quieter, more sensitive moments such as when he finally confesses to Lydia that he loves her. Williams earned a best actor nomination for his turn as Parry, but alas he would not receive that Oscar until years later for his stellar supporting work in Good Will Hunting. Mercedes Ruehl, however, did take the best supporting actress statuette home that year for her indelible turn as Jeff Bridges' sassy girlfriend and it was well-deserved. She embodies the self-assured, no-nonsense New York Italian woman perfectly. Amanda Plummer plays Lydia with just the right amount of sweetness and eccentricity and the late Michael Jeter as a gay cabaret singer does what is perhaps the best Ethel Merman impression I've ever heard in a film (except perhaps for Lt. Hurwitz in Airplane!). Also, David Hyde Pierce, Harry Shearer, Kathy Najimy and John de Lancie all play supporting roles.Generally speaking, The Fisher King was well-received by critics and did respectable business at the box office (making $42 million on a $24 million budget). In the 20 years that have elapsed since I first walked into that theater completely unaware of what I was about to experience, other films have gone on to replace it as my "favorite," but it will always have a special place in my heart. Its story still moves me, its music still delights me, its action scenes still thrill me and its characters still charm me. To this day when I watch it I want to believe that Parry is not totally crazy, that he really is "the janitor of God" and that the chalice they retrieve truly is the Holy Grail, "the symbol of God's divine grace." It may not be Terry Gilliam's best film (I tend to be unoriginal and go with Brazil on that point) but it is probably his most enchanting and more than any other film, shows off his gift as a romantic, honest-to-God storyteller and not just an eye-dazzling satirist/rebel.
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Labels: 90s, Depp, Jeff Bridges, Merman, Movie Tributes, Robert Downey Jr., Robin, Terry Gilliam
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Saturday, July 16, 2011
Centennial Tributes: Ginger Rogers
By Josh R
The studio system of the 1930s and '40s worked to both the advantage and detriment of those who lived and worked under its iron rule. Actors were under contract; the studio brass determined what films they appeared in, which roles they played and how they were presented to the public. Many didn’t mind or notice the degree of micromanagement that came with being a contract player — others rebelled against it. By the mid-'30s, Bette Davis had become increasingly dissatisfied with the quality of the films to which she was being assigned and went to court in an effort to be released from her contract with Warner Bros. The bid failed, but earned her the respect of Jack Warner, who paid closer attention to her demands and gave her better material to work with as a result. A decade later, Olivia de Havilland — feeling like an ossified Dresden shepherdess after so many hours spent in frilly costumes being wooed by Errol Flynn — successfully managed to break her contract with Warners, in effect ushering in the era of free agency. Actors now had the ability to go their own way, choose their own projects and challenge their accepted personas in ways parochial studio heads never would have sanctioned.
It is fortunate — extremely fortunate — that the studio system was firmly in place during the heyday of Ginger Rogers, for there is the definitive example of a performer whose ambitions and tastes were almost completely at odds with her strengths and talents. Indeed, she was talented; so much so that it’s depressing to contemplate what kind of a career she might have had if left to her own devices — to say nothing of what would have been lost in the process. Certainly, she wouldn’t have stuck around for nine films with Fred Astaire, nor have appeared in as many comedies. If you’d asked Rogers what she considered her crowning achievement as an artist, she would have undoubtedly cited Kitty Foyle, a prosaic tearjerker that earned her an Academy Award and
only served to illustrate how inexplicably dull she could be when doing what she judged to be “serious acting.” After that win, she had more autonomy, turning down Ball of Fire because she felt it to be derivative; she had passed on His Girl Friday the year before. She did get to play Dolly Madison in a stately biopic of the former first lady, and always recalled Now, Voyager as “the one that got away.” The role she tried the hardest for during her tenure at RKO was Queen Elizabeth I in Mary of Scotland, going so far as to disguise herself for a screen test conducted under an assumed identity; the incredulity with which her efforts were met was enough to merit a Louella Parsons column, written in the spirit of a resounding guffaw. If the legacy she’d envisioned for herself was largely not to be — and there were probably days when she reckoned to herself that Greer Garson was the lucky one — the career RKO fashioned around her nimble footwork, trouper’s pluck and comic finesse is a cineaste’s delight and not to be sneered at by those who equate substance with seriousness. At her very best, Rogers was lighter than air; locked in Fred’s embrace, she didn’t simply move, she floated. When she struck out on her own, in a handful of roles that spoke to her spirit and sense of playfulness, the takeoff was just as smooth, and allowed her to travel at altitudes unmatched by all but a few gifted comediennes.
The driving force behind Virginia Katherine McMath — steering her firmly through the eddies and tributaries of the raucous vaudeville circuit to Broadway and beyond — was Mrs. Lela Rogers, whose plans for her tiny daughter were never less than awesome in scope. Mother was, by most accounts, a real piece of work; she remained permanently tethered to her offspring throughout her life and career, to the occasional chagrin of studio executives, directors and the five sons-in-law who came and went. She passed on to Ginger her ambition, reactionary conservatism and acute consciousness of class; if Ginger’s taste and judgment were occasionally suspect, her thinking usually was a reflection of Lela’s priorities. Fledgling success in vaudeville led to a stage career, culminating with the lead role in George & Ira Gershwin’s Girl Crazy. While Ethel Merman stopped the show belting out “Who Could Ask for Anything More?”, camera-ready Ginger was the one who caught the attention of Hollywood talent scouts. She worked hard in a variety of inconsequential parts — before teaming up with Astaire, she had already appeared in nearly 20 films. Two bouncy, lavish Busby Berkeley musicals showcased her to great effect — first, covered in shimmering gold pieces and singing “We’re in the Money” in Gold Diggers of 1933, then squinting through a monocle and trying not to let her English accent slip in 42nd Street. Those films boosted her stock while testifying to the fact that the camera served her well; but a key element still was missing in furthering her ascent to stardom.
Flying Down to Rio was the game-changer, bringing with it the missing piece of the puzzle and the ideal yin to her yang. She and Astaire played secondary roles but effectively stole the film from its advertised stars with their otherworldly synchronicity of motion and seamless give-and-take. The powers at RKO knew a good thing
when they saw one and fashioned an entire series around the couple; if the films were largely interchangeable, their teamwork never became stale, or lost a fraction of its appeal for audiences. The Gay Divorcee, Roberta, Top Hat, Swing Time, Follow the Fleet, Shall We Dance?, Carefree and The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle provided welcome refuge from the bleak realities of the Depression; filmgoers were mesmerized by the deft movements of two figures gliding in perfect unison through an art deco paradise where ugly truths — war, poverty, privation — were never acknowledged. Katharine Hepburn famously said of the pair that “he gave her class, she gave him sex,” a canny assessment of the extent to which they both complemented and were enhanced by one another. Astaire, the perfectionist with an overweening attention to detail, lent Rogers an elegance and sophistication she may have lacked on her own, but she did more than make him seem virile and attractive. Her wry, unpretentious humor grounded him, making his rarefied persona more relaxed and consequently more accessible than it could have been otherwise; both on and off the dance floor, they each seemed to be basking in the other’s glow. Another famous quote — attributed to so many different people that it’s impossible to trace its true origin — insisted that Rogers had the tougher task of the two, since “she did everything he did, backwards — and in high heels.” Even more taxing may have been the effort it took to keep her million dollar smile fixed firmly in place through film after grinding film. Fred was too exacting, too controlling, and after the first few outings, both the material and the routine had grown increasingly repetitive; less than midway into their partnership, Ginger had become restless, fixing her sights on better things. Even before the duo had been dissolved officially, Rogers had been testing the waters as a solo act. The results were variable, but produced at least one genuine classic; there was a charge and intelligence to Rogers’ work in Stage Door, Gregory La Cava’s 1937 comic drama set in a theatrical boarding house, that the actress would never again equal in her career. Working alongside Hepburn, the other major female star at
RKO in the 1930s, brought out the best in her. It was a notoriously unfriendly rivalry; indeed, the lore surrounding their polite feud is just as entertaining, if less imbued with camp value, than the Davis-Crawford skirmishes of the mid-1960s. Rogers was jealous of Hepburn for several reasons; the latter had class, pedigree and commanded a much higher measure of regard than her stablemate. For her part, Hepburn — even more arrogant and aloof in Ginger’s presence than was the norm — probably was given to wonder why she had all the respect while Ginger enjoyed all the adoration; Rogers was a top draw with the public at the same time than Hepburn was continually at risk of being branded box office poison. It was necessary — perhaps predestined — that the two should meet in the celluloid arena at least once in their storied careers, and that the ensuing battle should give off sparks. Kate, along with everyone else, believed herself to be the better actress of the two, and made it known in subtle ways that she didn’t really consider Ginger an equal — or a threat. Ginger was self-conscious, insulted and, ultimately, not one to back down from a fight. When the two traded barbs in their scenes together, audiences were treated to an authentic battling rhythm fueled by genuine animosity and a spirit of competition. Maybe it took a slap in the face and a challenge to bring out both the toughness and the vulnerability in Ginger Rogers — whether that’s true or not, Stage Door represented her best work as an actress, demonstrating how easily she could segue from humor to pathos and back again without missing a beat.As wisecracking chorine Jean Maitland, Rogers showed that she had a devastating way with a quip — her delivery of the film’s zingy one-liners was so quick, sharp and assured that it often sounded like inspired improvisation. Viewing it today, her performance seems even more skillful given how much emotional complexity she brings to the role without sacrificing any of its humor. Jean is a tough cookie to be sure, but not immune to experiencing disappointment or, worse still, losing hope. The aspiring actresses at The Footlights Club live a precarious, uncertain existence — Rogers, more than any of the other performers, allows us to understand that comic banter is a necessary distraction from the fact that, at any moment, the girls might have their dreams and livelihoods taken away from them and fall off the grid. It’s not that Rogers simply lets us see the fear and fragility behind the snazzy retorts of these tart-tongued dames; she shows just how inextricably linked those seemingly self-contradictory properties are. She’s a smart-aleck blonde with a chip on her shoulder — as with any stand-up comedian, it’s the chip that’s the source of her comedy, even if the reality behind it is a source of hurt.
The success with Stage Door propelled her to other comedy outings, which proved the public’s fondness for her was not predicated solely on her dancing skills. She was delightful with James Stewart in Vivacious Lady, and scored a huge hit with Bachelor Mother; but the siren call of drama (to be more accurate, melodrama) and its attendant prestige tugged at her with a greater insistence. She dyed her trademark platinum tresses a dull shade of brown and got her Oscar for Kitty Foyle — for serious hair and serious acting — though, in truth,
she was much better in Primrose Path, a shantytown drama released that same year. Her earnest, unimaginative turn as Kitty the lovelorn shop girl — a blue collar sweetheart who suffers and overcomes — didn’t betray so much as an ounce of the spark and savvy that informed her best performances, but was nonetheless a solid piece of work; The Academy’s confusion of professionalism with excellence doubtless propelled her to seek out similarly themed exercises and tear-stained nobility soon became her stock in trade. Happily, she made a brief return to high form in 1942 with two very different showcases, both of which proved how on point her comic instincts could be when fully engaged. In The Major and the Minor, Billy Wilder’s maiden outing as a director, she was a short-tempered salesgirl posing as a 12-year-old in order to buy a half-price train ticket out of New York. The setup was ridiculous, but the performance was full of deft touches, even if her baby talk routine wore thin in patches. She was even better in William Wellman’s Roxie Hart, adapted from the Maurine Dallas Watkins play that also served as the basis for the stage and film musical Chicago. The role of a fame-hungry, gun-toting jazz baby was as close as she ever got to playing a genuine bad girl, and she warmed to the cynicism of the piece in ways that probably surprised even her. Even if the film chickened out towards the end, it still allowed the actress some welcome flashes of coarseness and naughtiness — qualities she had so studiously avoided for the bulk of her career, but which actually served her wry, knowing sensibility much better than conventional melodrama. The bathtub gin buzz didn’t last very long, and the actress retreated back to respectability too quickly for anyone to start questioning her integrity. The films and performances that rounded out the remainder of the '40s were not especially interesting, regardless that they represented the types of projects the dancing lady of the '30s had fought so assiduously to be considered for. Some were ambitious failures — Weill’s Lady in the Dark was simply beyond her, while Heartbeat was an attempt at European sophistication with about as much lightness and airiness to it as a freeze-dried croissant. Tender Comrade, a war-time romance featuring only the vaguest of socialist undertones, was notable only for the extent to which the actress completely disowned it once Hollywood’s red paranoia kicked into high gear. I’ll Be Seeing You, Weekend at the Waldorf and Magnificent Doll all fell flat for various reasons, the common denominator being how smug and arch Rogers could seem when affecting the posture of a great lady. 1949 brought an unexpected reunion with Astaire, after Judy Garland pulled out of The Barkleys of Broadway. While the couple’s timing on the dance floor was as precise and polished as ever, it was clear that Ginger, the actress, had grown too grand for Fred; while still light on her feet, she’d lost her lightness of touch, and Astaire’s wariness was such that you could practically see him rolling his eyes when her back was turned.
The '50s were a mishmash of pretensions and delusions, pausing briefly for Monkey Business, hailed by many as her best late-career entry, although in truth somewhat disappointing given the caliber of the talent involved. Rogers gave it the old college try, indulging in infantile shenanigans with Howard Hawks and Cary Grant, but the film felt oddly stagnant — a second-tier entry from top-flight pros, and a warmed-over attempt to recapture screwball comedy glory at a time when the genre seemed to have lost confidence in itself. Forever Female somewhat clumsily attempted to expose the follies of an aging ingénue refusing to acknowledge the passage of time, while The First Traveling Saleslady was a grotesque illustration of the point — the high-pitched girlishness of the performance, shot through a soft-focus lens, lent the entire enterprise the feeling of a drag act. Rogers probably realized her mistake sometime after making it, and retreated to the more comfortable environs of television. She scored a personal success replacing Carol Channing in the Broadway production of Hello, Dolly! and toured extensively with a one-woman show that traded heavily in sequins and glamour, showing she’d lost none of the showgirl’s instinct and eagerness to please.
The more one learns about Ginger Rogers, the more difficult a figure she is to come to terms with. It goes beyond the fact that her political positions were as poorly thought out as many of her career choices; her blithe defense of her mother’s star turn as a cooperating witness before the House Un-American Activities Committee serves as one of the more uncomfortable passages to be read in any star autobiography (Ever an actress in search of a stage, Lela finally found one on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives, moralizing and naming names.) The real problem lies in trying to reconcile the delightful presence of so many classic films — a quick-witted triple threat with an unpretentious, refreshingly candid approach to comedy — with the snobbish, rather bourgeois
attitudes of a woman who looked down on so many of the qualities for which she was cherished. How much greater her career could have been had she not turned up her nose at the things she excelled is a question with no easy answer – it’s possible the opportunities wouldn’t have been there for an actress in early middle age, even had her notion of quality been a little less narrow. Regardless of who Ginger Rogers was when the cameras stopped rolling — or what was going on in the back of her mind even as they were — in the handful of films that show her at her absolute best, she still is a wonder to behold. There are not many performers who bridged the gap between musical and non-musical careers as smoothly or as effortlessly as she did; even Garland always seemed a bit lost when she didn’t have her singing to lean on, or Gene Kelly his dancing. She had a beautiful understanding of the mechanics of her craft, as both an actress and a dancer, but wasn’t overly reliant on technical skill; there was an easy quality about her, as if she’d nailed the technical element down so completely that she didn’t even have to think about it when executing impossible feats of choreographic wizardry, or landing a wisecrack with a throwaway air than never smacked of premeditation. The greatness of her best performances lies in how comfortable she seemed with her own talent, and how naturally things came to her when she wasn’t bogged down by the notion of trying to seem impressive — when there were no Oscars to be won, and she felt free and loose, she came up with performances so good that they went right over the Academy’s head. That’s the Ginger Rogers we know and love; with or without Fred Astaire, she had all the right moves and an impeccable sense of how and when to use them.Tweet
Labels: Astaire, Bette, Cary, Crawford, de Havilland, Erroll Flynn, Garland, Garson, Ginger Rogers, Hawks, J. Stewart, K. Hepburn, Merman, Musicals, Oscars, Theater, Wellman, Wilder
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